Atlas Hands
A/N: Alright, so obviously I've been writing a lot of Hunger Games crossover fic. After that last one, where Kendall and James ROLEPLAYED Cinna and Finnick, I was asked to write them AS Cinna and Finnick. This is the result. Enjoy. Warning for mentions of minor Jett/Kendall, Kendall/Camille, and really really minor James/Logan.
The moon is waning over the bright city lights of the Capitol when Kendall wakes up. He shades his eyes from the glaring green, blue, and red glow of clock numbers and television remotes. It's been nine years, and he's still not used to the technological overload. Back home, the stars are his nightlights. He likes it that way.
Kendall stretches, long, lithe, naked. He kisses the shoulder of the boy lying next to him, mouth lingering against his scapula. The kid can't feel it. He is dead to the world.
Odd turn of phrase, that. Soon enough, he'll probably be dead for real. Or maybe not. Fate is capricious, and the guy has been training for this his whole life. He's a tribute from District Two, Jett something. He's strong. Not that strength means anything. It adds a competitive edge, sure, but between the harsh environment of the arena, the other tributes, and the whimsical nature of the Gamemakers, an edge doesn't help much. Still. Kendall thinks he'd hate to see this boy suffer.
When Jett approached him, he was arrogant, cocksure. He spewed insults from his pretty, insolent mouth, calling Kendall a whore and worse. But under the cover of darkness, he fell to pieces. He clutched Kendall close, held him dear. He was eager to please. During the second go of it, he let Kendall fuck him, needing someone else to take control. Kendall gets that. He's been there. He made it good for Jett, made sure that he nearly sobbed with it when he came.
This is the part they never show on camera, at least not until the end. It's like people forget that beneath the brave-face of the Careers, there are teenagers too. Lost. Scared. Desperate. Vulnerability is only expected in underdogs. Not giants. Not champions.
That's why Kendall didn't turn Jett down. He spends a lot of time hating his role in the Capitol, being a sex symbol, being a whore. But he doesn't mind splitting himself open if it means he can chase someone else's pain away. Even if that someone is a prickish bastard who will probably end up slaughtering the kids Kendall is supposed to be mentoring.
This year's cull doesn't have much of a chance anyway. The boy is a dreamer, head caught in the clouds. He seems to be holding onto the hope that he won't have to kill anyone, lost in old wives' tales about mermaids and miracles. The girl is a sneaky, weaseley thing who lets the tributes from One and Two boss her around. She's a ready, willing pawn.
Pawns nearly always die.
Kendall crawls from beneath the thick, soft comforter, standing on bare tile. It heats to sun-warm beneath his feet. The opulence is alien, unnecessary. The only thing that makes Kendall feel comfortable is the taste of salt water on his lips. Carefully, he begins the search for his clothes.
He does not want to wake Jett for purely selfish reasons. He promised the kid a whole night, sunset to sunrise, but the truth is that the dark makes him restless. His fingers twitch for a weapon. He finds his pants instead, stepping into them with a kind of effortless grace that he had to learn.
That's what no one knows; Kendall did not come pre-equipped with boyish charm or straightforward sophistication. They are skills that he's had to master, just like politics and making love. He stumbled too many times, never the best of students. But he's got it figured out now.
Kendall creeps out into the hall, towards the elevator that will take him to the fourth floor suites. Stealth isn't essential; everyone knows what Kendall Knight gets up to once the sun goes down. Everyone thinks that they know him. Even the white radiance of the elevator buttons judge him.
As the door slides closed, he jabs his index finger against one. He needs fresh air.
Not the fourth floor, then.
The roof spans the entirety of the training complex and the tribute apartments. Kendall knows the layout by heart. He spent hours up here back when he thought the sparkling cityscape was the last pretty thing he'd ever see. Since he came back from the Arena, mostly unscathed, he's spent a lot more time laying in the miniature garden, dirt beneath his fingers, the ghost of something that might be stars overhead. He's not big on the thick scent of freesia in his nose, but he likes the tinkle of the wind chimes some kindly gardener has set up, and this is essentially the closest thing they have to a beach.
He could go lie next to one of the grandiose fountains out there, but these days, every time he steps foot on Capitol pavement it's like he exists to create a spectacle. He doesn't much like crowds, and besides. Everything in this city is fake, right down to the dyed colors of the fountain water. It reminds him of the arena, where the flora and fauna were all mutated and grotesque.
Kendall presses his fingers into the hollows of his eyes, trying to black out the things he can't forget; misshapen, torn flesh, splashes of scarlet, the ivory of bone. Atrocities. Some of which he committed. He walks to the edge of the roof and breathes, sucks air down and holds it there.
"Deep thoughts?" It's a tease over his shoulder, hot air in the shell of his ear.
Kendall doesn't turn. He leans on the ledge of the roof, elbows scraping concrete. "You're up late."
"Logan," James explains, settling down on the ground, back to the Capitol. He doesn't like all the pomp and circumstance any more than Kendall. Then again, he's been fighting against it for his entire life.
"Ah. How is the boy on fire?"
"A handful." James smiles, affectionate.
It makes the corners of Kendall lips curve pull in. He glances down to get a top view of James's immaculately arranged hair, accusing, "You like him."
"He's a nice kid, underneath all that coal dust."
The thick ring of eyeliner James wears catches the moonlight, spreads gold straight across his sooty black lashes. Kendall's fingers curl into fists. "Have you fucked him yet?"
The James that people see on TV would wince. He'd give the cameras that prudish, puritan scowl that is equal parts scolding and embarrassment. The James that spends the day with Capitol lemmings would chuckle, polite but distant, and steer the topic towards calmer waters. This James, Kendall's James- maybe even the real James, he dares to hope- laughs, full of self-deprecation.
"Have you stopped fucking Camille yet? How about the rest of the Capito-" his words bite off, strangled, because Kendall is yanking James to his feet by the roots of his hair.
"You don't get to talk about her."
James grins, pained, lurid. He doesn't look like the reserved, courteous stylist for District Twelve. He looks like the Wildman from District Thirteen, the one who found fifteen year old Kendall starting a drunken fist fight in one of the Capitol's manymanymany bars. The guy who helped Kendall beat the shit out of his opponent before the two of them had to run like hell.
Petty, alcohol inspired brawls happen all the time in the hallowed streets of Panem's lavish city center, but it's still better not to get caught. Especially when you're just another victor from a backwater District, barely wearing the crown long enough to possess a reputation. Back then, Kendall's entourage still joked that he smelled of salmon and the brackish sea. But James looked at him like he was a hero.
That night was streaked through with champagne bubbles and starlight and bootlegged music chips stolen straight off a train from District Three. Kendall lost his virginity to James in the shell of a sparsely decorated apartment. He fell all over himself to satisfy this kid who was barely his age, but who seemed like he knew more about living than all the other guys Kendall knew; at least the ones who hadn't been in the arena. It was only in the harsh light of day that Kendall found out it had all been orchestrated for his benefit. James was trying to recruit him for something bigger, better.
Something they've been waiting to put into motion ever since.
And they became…well. Kendall's never sure. He was hurt, at first, when he figured out James was using him. But. He got over his childish grudge years ago. He has spent days training in the depths of District Thirteen, side by side with this man. He has spent nights tangled in James's warmth, wondering if he is merely a tool or something more. Allies? Friends?
Lovers?
It is the first time Kendall has ever been forced to interact with James in the midst of the Games, the new job assigning his friend a kind of status and prestige James didn't warrant from Capitol society when he was just some kid in design school. Kendall doesn't know how to act or react or not act. Worse, they've barely seen each other since before the Reapings, James swept up in stylist things that Kendall doesn't care to understand, Kendall occupied by life. And since they've stepped foot in the Capitol, they've never been alone. Kendall has his friends from District Four, the other Victors who traveled in for moral support. James has got his team, a trio of girls with big mouths and bizarre fashion sense. And they've both got admirers.
So this, the ragged breath, the angry eyes; this has been their first real meeting since maybe Harvest, when the last Victory Tour was in full swing and Kendall could slip into the Capitol unnoticed. It's going so wonderfully.
James says, "So you don't get to talk about Logan, then."
His eyes spark with fire, the same fire he made stupid Logan Mitchell famous with. It catches in Kendall's gaze, reflects flames back at James, burning, wild. "He's going to die, you know. You've made him a target."
James shrugs. "Don't count him out."
His scalp is turning white from the places where Kendall is pulling. Reluctantly, he lets go, letting James stand up to his full height. He's got a few inches on Kendall. It's annoying. He says, "I can't believe you. That kid, the other tribute from Twelve- Garcia?- is always making cow eyes at Mitchell. And here you are, banging his brains out behind the scenes."
James strokes a finger down the slope of Kendall's nose, tapping the end. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were jealous."
"I'm not," Kendall retorts, but he's not sure if it's true. Is this what jealousy is like? He's slept with so many people he's lost count, but he's never cared if they had other partners.
This is new.
Unwanted.
Unjustifiable, even, because James is right. Kendall has his one true love; Camille. Poor, mad Camille, who Kendall just couldn't save. She is his heart.
They grew up together on the shores of District Four, side by side in the sunlight until the day Kendall's life as he knew it ended. He came back from The Hunger Games changed inside, but a few years later the Games cut Camille a thousand times deeper. They broke her in a way that would make Kendall want to start a rebellion, if he wasn't already at the core of one.
When she manages a smile these days, it makes Kendall remember why he puts up with this farce. Why he sluts around the obscene Capitol crowd and doomed tributes. Why he agreed to gather recon for Thirteen in the first place. One day, he wants a better world for her.
He is not sure what he wants for James. Only that it probably is not a boy on fire. "I don't get jealous."
James flinches. He rearranges his expression, nimble, the same way his fingers work over the handsome suits he parades his tributes around in. "I know." After a pause, to catch his breath, or maybe compose his voice, he asks seriously, "Who was the lucky recipient of Kendall Knight's charms tonight?"
Kendall hesitates to answer. The people back at Thirteen don't like it when he fools around with tributes. He's supposed to limit his attention to the higher ups in the machine, people the President himself confides in. Reluctant, he confesses, "Jett Something."
James's lips thin.
"The tribute from Two?" Kendall nods. "And what secrets did he have to tell? His last words?"
It's vicious, the way James says it. Mean. Unlike him. "Stop."
"Why?" James demands, his voice getting louder, too loud. The wind chimes cannot drown him out. "I think you like this job too much. You bend over for anyone who asks."
Kendall only means to shut him up. That's all the kiss is. But the next thing he knows, he has James's jaw caught between his tight grip, James's tongue playing filthy against his own, their hips fitted close. Seconds or minutes or hours pass like that, crushed together, too near, but not near enough.
Kendall mumbles into his mouth, wrecked, "It's your fault I'm like this. You made me this way."
James agrees, pants, "I'm sorry," and sounds like he actually means it. Like maybe the things Kendall has to do shatter James inside.
That is too much to hope for.
Kendall lets James take him over the ledge on the roof, the city shimmering beneath them. They're rushed, a little frantic, a kind of raw that Kendall doesn't go through with anyone else. No one but James has ever made him want this much.
Pants shoved down around their ankles, he and James talk better with their hips than they ever have out loud.
James sucks apologies into the notches of Kendall's spine, familiar with what will ease the tension in his muscles, too knowledgeable about what will make him fall apart. He licks into Kendall's hairline, marks his throat red and blue. Kendall fucks back against him, twining their fingers, kissing his jaw where it rests on his shoulder. He gets intimate with so many people, but it only ever feels real with James and Camille, his first and god willing, one day, his last. She is his heart and James the rest of him, his pulse, his bones, all the things that make him strong, that keep him alive.
He can feel James go deep, the head of him wethotthere. In a rush of breath James murmurs, "It's you, IloveyouKendall, you'reit," and it brings Kendall off, just like it's supposed to, cum splashing down to sizzle on the roof's force field. James is inside him, still pulsing, his forehead sweaty against Kendall's shoulder. Kendall tries to help James ride it out, kisses soft against the places he can reach, like his nose, his cheek, his eyelid.
He wonders if his lips come away gold.
James collapses against him like they are back at Thirteen, on the training field, comrades in arms. There they found that he cannot handle a trident as skillfully as Kendall, but he can wield Kendall better than any weapon. That has not changed. Kendall doesn't have much energy left, but James falls to his knees, tongues him loose and open, each wet flick reviving his dick, making him want to feel James hard and visceral, like the first time.
It is Kendall's turn to want to be owned, and this is the only circumstance in which he is okay with that feeling. James is not Capitol-trash. James knows him. He sucks all the air from the night sky, gathers black and silver around his shoulders and devours the whole universe with his eyes. He is the only thing Kendall can see when they rut in the dirt, feral as animals, powerful as gods. The muscles in James's thighs work as he works himself into Kendall, never quite repetitive, biting on the flesh of Kendall's lower lip.
His orgasm hits him harder, this time, balls tight and overused. Cum drizzles down the side of his dick, a tiny pool on his stomach that smears between him and James.
"You're beautiful," James whispers like a secret, driving himself home in short stutters of his hips. He adds, "Kiss me."
Kendall does. He tangles his arms around James's neck and draws him in, uses his legs too. James comes with Kendall's tongue fucking his mouth, his entire body shuddering while Kendall wraps him in his long, pale limbs as though they are tentacles.
When they finally separate, Kendall has to snark, "Better than Logan?"
James won't rise to the bait. He presses a chaste kiss to Kendall's mouth. "You know it was."
Kendall doesn't know anything of the sort, but he pastes on a confident smile all the same. "We should get going. Early morning. Interviews tomorrow, you know."
The problem is, he does not want to leave James. There is a reason for that.
It is something Kendall doesn't like to admit.
"Let's go." James is in Kendall's role, gathering his clothes while Kendall watches from his place in the dirt. He is smeared with the stuff, like he has lived through a wild Bacchanal.
Kendall likes to watch, likes the shape of James's muscles beneath his skin and the simple elegance in the way his fingers move over his shirt. He has tried copying James before, his style, his posture, his class. It never works. He feels positively provincial in the midst of his own dressing routine.
But James pauses, midway through buckling his pants. He says, "Kendall. You know…I'm here if you want me."
Kendall can hear all the unspoken ifs that follow that phrase.
If he leaves Camille.
If he stops playing honey pot to Capitol bigwigs.
If they run away, because that's what they'd have to do.
They won't. They're in too deep. And the truth is, neither of them is really willing to quit.
In the elevator, Kendall tries to inhale all of the air from James's lungs, to push it deep inside himself while they kiss. They reach the top floor of the complex all too soon, and his last glimpse of James for the night is the broad span of his shoulders. He calls, "I'll see you tomorrow."
He does not say good luck, because James will not need it. His hands create magic, even with some small town hick from District Twelve. There is a twinge in his chest. After the doors slide closed, Kendall presses his fingers to his mouth. Is that coal dust he tastes, there, ingrained in the whorls and edges of his skin?
He doesn't let himself think about it. The fourth floor rises to meet him, or he sinks to greet it, but either way he is there. Kendall climbs into bed and curls around Camille.
She breathes soft, gentle, barely there. She feels insubstantial, like she might disappear. He loves her so much. But. This is the reason he did not want James to go. Since he was fourteen years old, the only time Kendall has ever come close to feeling safe is when he's around James.
Kendall can't help wishing that it was his body filling up all the space in his bed.